Why You Can’t Bequeath Your Digital Library

You can’t take it with you when you die – and when it comes to digital media, you also can’t leave it behind, either. (See related story.)

The shift to digital music, movies and books sold over the Internet has simplified buying, storing and enjoying vast collections of content. But it has made it nearly impossible to pass along or sell collections when you die.

Records, CDs, DVDs and books which are physical copies that you own, and what copyright lawyers call the “first sale doctrine” allows you to leave them to someone when you die, or sell them. But most online stores sell digital media as licenses – legal contracts that allow usually just one person to use the digital copy of the recording. You don’t own anything real, and the courts haven’t yet said if or how you can pass it on or resell the digital file.

Online superstores including Amazon.com and Apple’s iTunes say little about the idea of bequeathing a library. An Apple spokesman said the company “doesn’t have a policy to allow people to will their digital collections to someone.” An Amazon spokeswoman didn’t respond to calls and emails.

A number of public flaps have highlighted just how ephemeral our digital media licenses can be. In 2009, Amazon angered some customers who had bought the Kindle e-book version of George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by, in effect, reaching into people’s wireless-Internet Kindle devices and deleting the e-books. Amazon said it did so because it discovered that it didn’t actually have the right to sell the book, and later apologized.

This summer, British newspapers erroneously reported that actor Bruce Willis wanted to sue Apple over the right to bequeath his iTunes collection to his family. The story wasn’t true, but it caused many bloggers to take a closer look into the terms of their contracts with the online stores – those lengthy legal documents that you have to “agree” to before you can buy.

• You can’t sell or give someone else your purchase; the license is for the “end user use only.”
• You can play music, video and e-book content on up to five different computers – except for film rentals.
• You can burn music playlists onto a disc seven times.
• You can’t make copies for anything other than your own personal backup.

In practical – but legally grey — terms, people who want to pass on or sell digital media files could simply hand over a computer or iPod filled with the digital media. And, as with other digital accounts, there’s nothing stopping someone from handing over account details and passwords before they pass away, allowing a survivor to continue accessing their libraries.

While not designed to bequeath a library after death, the website Redigi.com has tried to set up an online marketplace for people to re-sell some of their existing digital media files purchased through iTunes. But Redigi is in an ongoing legal fight in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York with Capitol Records, which has claimed the “first sale doctrine” doesn’t apply to its digital music files.

A Madison, Wisc.-based service called Murfie.com has developed one work-around for the problem that relies on old-fashioned physical copies. Since owners of physical CDs do have the right to sell or give their discs to someone else, Murfie allows customers to send their physical CDs to their warehouse, and then access the music digitally over the Internet. Using the site, people can also then sell or give their music – backed by that physical CD sitting in Murfie’s warehouse – to someone else.